Posts Tagged ‘speaking’

With age, one sometimes begins to accumulate wisdom, and, although I am not one to focus on the woulda, shoulda, coulda opportunities that have passed me by, one regret that I surely have is that I had not met Dr. David Rakel until about three years ago. Dr. Rakel is the Director of the University of Wisconsin Integrative Medicine program. He attended medical school at Baylor in Houston, Texas, and completed a family practice residency in Greeley, Colorado. He is a doctor, a father, an academician, but most importantly, he is a healer. Of all of the physicians that I have ever known – and there have literally been hundreds of them, Dr. Rakel embraces all that is good in the medical profession.

David P. Rakel, MD

In his presentation, “Placebo or NoCebo,” David outlined the ingredients present in a healing environment: 1. A relationship with a helping person, 2. A healing setting, 3. An explanation that gives a sense of control of a symptom. 4. A ritual procedure or plan that involves active participation of both parties – patient and clinician – that results in belief towards action. He spoke passionately about the importance of touch, the intrinsic value of healing, and the fact that something was done with the ritual. One of my favorite, tongue- in- cheek quotes that David had was from Voltaire: “ It is the physician’s duty to amuse the patient while nature cures the disease.”

Dr. Rakel talked about the intelligence of being positive while giving the prognosis, showing empathy, empowering the patient, and demonstrating the importance of having a connection between the physician and patient. I’m sure that I’m not capturing all of the salient points that David carefully made, but I am sure that I understood his commitment to connection with the patient and the significance of using as many positive words as possible to convey that connection.

Once again, a great quote from Dr. Rakel revolved around the fact that you get better faster if you have unconditional love from your pet than a bad connection with your doc. He and his research on the common cold both suggested that, “It is better to stay home and be licked by your dog, than to spend time at a clinic with a grumpy doc!”

His recommendations to his residents and to all of the physicians to whom he lectures is that the physician needs to display empathy, compassion, patience and the ability to listen. His counsel to meditate revolved around the need for us to get out of our chaos and influence self-healing mechanisms. He described this journey from awareness to awakening to authenticity and finally to awe where the closer that we get to authenticity, the more beautiful our lives become.

Dr. Rakel then launched into numerous studies that evolved around the placebo effect such as the study where arthroscopic knee surgeries were “faked,” but resulted in positive outcomes. By referring to obesity as working toward optimal weight; chronic pain as myofascial health, depression (and this is my favorite) as potentially happy, the patients are not labeled with negative implications, and we accomplish a shift in our intentions. Not unlike what Newton, Einstein and Stephen Hawkins have done in physics, perceptions have been shifted by changing the manner in which we observe things. He said, “How about if we tell the patient that they are potentially happy rather than clinically depressed?” Our intention is reflective of our future.

Finally, Dr. Rakel suggested that physicians protect time in their schedules, create space, create positive patient expectations, be fully present and listen to the patient, that they offer support and collaboration and create a plan by using words that heal rather than words that harm.

For the past three years, I have had a chance to dig heavily into the future, and I’m pretty convinced that the old saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” has never been more true than in today’s healthcare environment. What was a given before in healthcare management may no longer be so in the future, and since most hospitals only Chief Innovation Officer is the President him or herself, their tasks of visualizing, understanding, deciding and directing the future of the organization will be shifting even more heavily from quantitative deciding-and-directing to the more qualitative visualizing-and-understanding side of this leadership equation.

Although I understand the reluctance of most CEO’s to be on the bleeding edge of creativity, my experiences at my former positions can significantly reduce or mitigate the majority of risk from any decision regarding innovation.

Our new competitive environment has an insatiable appetite for information, access and connectivity and it’s a well known fact that a periodic injection of chaos fosters creativity and forces your co-workers to leverage technology. Because most organizations already have an environment that is built on trust and collaboration, injecting a little creativity can put their CEOs in more of a position to be the orchestrator and the inspirer.

That Used to be Us is the new book by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum in which they analyze four specific challenges Americans face as a nation—globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation’s chronic deficits, and our pattern of excessive energy consumption—and spell out what they believe needs to be done to sustain the American dream, and achieve true supremacy based on innovation and excellence.

As an innovator and futurist, several sections of this book captured my imagination and brought closure to a myriad of beliefs that I have instinctively embraced over the past few decades. When my responsibilities revolved around the CEO position, I always saw my job as being a contributor to an environment where creative decisions were embraced allowed to happen and then those innovators were rewarded and inspired to keep going.

As the co-founder of a Research Institute, one issue that continually resonates with me is that “We don’t have enough ‘rogue’ CEO’s in healthcare administration to take risks so that the rest can benefit from both their successes and knowledge.”

Last weekend, I traveled to Barcelona. How does one afford to spend a weekend in Barcelona in this economy with the dollar at $1.40 to one Euro, one might ask? Points, my friends, points. When you travel enough, it’s possible to build up quite a few of these delightfully-useful but quickly-diminishing-in-value “perks,” and that’s how I got there.

Because it’s “Vacation time in Europe,” numerous hotels, restaurants, and tourist attractions offer nice packages for a reasonable number of points, and because I’d never been to Barcelona or anywhere in Spain for that matter, it seemed like a good plan. Albeit brief, my 4 day journey into yet another culture was almost worth the pain of traveling. Of course, if you remember my Serbia, Nigeria, Bosnia, Netherlands and Italy blog posts, you know that I’m all about “experiences.”

The longer I live, the more interested I am in how other people live. Many years ago, probably 20 or so, we had an exchange student, Monica, from Barcelona who used to stand in my family room, look out the window into the rolling fields and proclaim, “Nick, Nick, I am sooo bored.” Truthfully, I was, too.

So, why Barcelona, VAT and the “A” word? I fell in love with the city. I loved the ambiance, the food, the wines, the architecture, and the people. Maybe it was the fact that there are two million souls living there, and I never felt uneasy even once. Unlike my last trip to Chicago, where I couldn’t sleep all night because of the continuing chorus of sirens from emergency vehicles, Barcelona’s street in front of our hotel erupted in the wail of those distinctive, European sirens only
about four times, from Friday until the following Monday.

Some of the little things that captured my attention included the walk/don’t walk sign on the streets that actually allowed you enough time to cross at your leisure without being hit by an oncoming car. The people and cab drivers were polite and, most importantly, there was a feeling of helpfulness and respect in the shops, restaurants and architectural wonders.

Of course, by Sunday evening, we had visited nearly every architectural work of Antoni Gaudí, and toured and listened to a great concert at the inspiring Palau Música Catalana. Barcelona is today one of the world’s leading tourist, economic and cultural and sports centres, and this all contributes to its status as one of the world’s leading cities.

But what about the rest of the title of this blog post? Every time we purchased something material there, the VAT tax was applied, and when I asked someone to explain it, the answer was simple, “It’s how we pay for healthcare.” Consequently, when we walked the streets over that entire weekend, we saw a total of five beggars, and three of them had a Starbucks Cup to catch the falling Euros.

The other things that we saw everywhere were dumpster-style recycling bins. And not just any bins, either. Very fancy, clean, able-to-be-picked-up-mechanically bins, that were specifically color coded for every imaginable kind of recyclables. Not rocket science, but a comment on community pride, sustainability or climate change, perhaps.

So, we’ve taken care of the creation of a pleasant ambiance on numerous levels with extraordinary architecture, beautiful tree-lined streets, recycling, healthcare, low crime and compassion for fellow human beings. We didn’t see many Mercedes, but we also didn’t see much evidence of poverty, either. The beaches in town were public, and not controlled by exclusive beachfront hotels. Barcelona’s public transportation was a pleasure — clean, comfortable and efficient, with a train to Paris that delivers you there in about three hours…and the Tapas, wine and customer service were all simply amazing.

Nationally, Spain’s unemployment rate hit 21.3%, and they are listed as one of the PIIGS: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain…i.e., economically-unsound EU countries. In spite of these huge challenges, Barcelona was a great city, a great experience, and a great setting with world class arts. So, should we charter an Airbus 380, load up our U.S. Congress, and fly them to Barcelona?

Two years ago I began this new journey, but not until a few months ago did my work in consulting really begin to take shape in a way that could never have been predicted.

As the challenges of our present economic times have become increasingly daunting, my personal and professional journey has become even more dedicated to innovation and creativity. One goal has been to provide new alternatives to past practices that will create value for patients. This means making a contribution to saving and transforming lives, while producing cost savings and financial stability, and developing new markets to enable provider growth in their missions.

The driving force behind my exploration began with asking how we can begin to control those out of control expensesthat are currently blurring the lines between continued care for our population, and rationing or elimination of services? But, the answer(s) must enable us to continue to add healing opportunities for our patients at every turn.

Because my creative energies have always been focused on producing more ways to generate new monies for whatever organizations I have personally represented, it seemed somewhat foreign to me to spend more time on fiscal issues than creative alternatives. However, with literally millions of Baby Boomers coming of age each year, it was obvious that our entire culture is at risk both fiscally and socially. Consequently, after listening carefully to my peers, several opportunities presented themselves that would address all levels of these concerns.

Through the combination of their proprietary software and dozens of years of combined knowledge in the healthcare finance field,SunStone Consulting, LLC, spends each and every working day addressing the challenges of finding monies that should already have been captured by hospitals and physician practices, while also creating new opportunities that have heretofore not been explored. That’s where SunStone Management Resources comes into play.

We have identified new companies, new entrepreneurs and new creatives who can not only improve healthcare, but also significantly improve the bottom line of those organizations willing to embrace their programs. One such company with whom we are partnering can increase Emergency Room productivity by as much as 35 to 50%. They can also help do the same for cancer centers and operating rooms. They utilize robotic systems that communicate patient needs and simultaneously seek out the appropriate medical services required as soon as the patient is triaged. The patient’s condition and potential requirements are communicated to every individual who will or should have contact with them throughout their hospital stay.

We have also identified what I refer to as “no brainer” opportunities. By making otherwise locked fiscal percentages a commodity, even small and medium sized organizations can save huge dollar amounts. How? By changing out only the electronic reading devices used hospital-wide. This simple change has resulted in huge fiscal savings for clients.

Add to examples like those above the introduction of a new invention that, in the right hands, can help to extend some types of Stage 3B and Stage IV cancer patients’ lives from months to years through a relatively simple post-surgical procedure. Also consider the invention of new materials that would support bone growth, while virtually eliminating the need for casts or even slings. Imagine a series of protocols that have brought over 40 people out of deep, irreversible comas. Then, on a completely different path, consider having access to the cumulative knowledge garnered from over a hundred million dollar investment in breast cancer care. (This is about to be made available to small and medium sized hospitals across the world.)

These are but a sampling of just some of the opportunities currently driving my passion in this new healthcare world order.

You may want to make a simple inquiry into what’s behind the innovative, practical, and incredible creations of the brilliant people doing this work. It’s not just so many words on a page. It is the future, and the future for you and your organization could be now.

When Dying is Finally Enough

The Dichotomy of Death

On Thursday evenings from 1970 until 1975 there was a standing invitation to play pool at Jim’s Dad’s house. Now, the truth of the matter was that, as young school teachers, most of us barely owned houses, let alone a pool table, so one of my colleagues parents’ opened their home to allow us to have some safe recreation. During those innocent days of my mid twenties, many of the world’s problems were solved. Jim’s father was a wise old philosopher in his early sixties, a retired coal miner who loved to be around the kids.

One night, we began discussing religion, faith, and death as we mechanically yelled out lines like “16 in the side pocket.” The discussion became particularly heated when it came to hypocrisy of our healthcare system. We kids or at least this kid listened in amazement as old Carl explained how life was in the old days. His relatives from the old country had salves and ointments, herbs and mustard plasters that took care of virtually every ailment known to man, and when they failed and death was inevitable, death was accepted. He used to laugh and say, “But now, everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”

It was then that the subject changed to today where there was truly a cure for nearly everything, or so it seemed at age 23. Get sick? Take a pill or get a shot. But then, a few weeks earlier, my father had been diagnosed with lung cancer and was given less than a three percent chance of survival. As Carl and I discussed this situation, he put his arm on my shoulder, and wished me luck. At 58, my dad was still a young man, and neither my education, my prayers, nor my love would be able to save him.

The American way of death seems to be that death is not acceptable at any age, at any time or for any reason. Death is rarely seen as the inevitable future that we all face. Our American system of death is that it should not happen. Death is no longer accepted as part of life. Oh, yes, we hear those words, but when it is our loved one, they are very difficult to embrace or articulate.

Our medical schools, our nursing schools, our technology schools train our students in most cases that death is failure. This is why we have a system of health care that is crumbling under our very eyes. Through drugs, machines, and other advances, we have the ability to allow individuals to live longer than ever in the history of mankind. It is absolute reality that more people will have an opportunity to live longer than 100 years of age than ever in history, but at what cost, and with what degree of quality?

Because of our culture, we fight death until we are shocked by it, and the result is that we, as families miss the wonderful opportunity to allow our loved one a peaceful, beautiful, comforting transition.

Palliative care, a.k.a., hospice care, provides that transition. In a hospice program, we experience love in all forms until death. Hospice provides a womb-like environment where love can replace fear, where family can be the center of that love, and where the transition can be a beautiful, healing journey for everyone involved so that it becomes a peaceful transition.

What Can You Do?

Do your personal homework. Begin to talk to your loved ones early on about their wishes. Make those wishes as clear as you can. Do not be fearful that anyone will let you die before your time. Trust that your family or friends can support you in your intentions, and be sure that you put everything in writing that you possibly can. Most importantly, however, try to find peace with yourself.

F. Nicholas “Nick” Jacobs, FACHE, is the international director for SunStone Consulting, LLC. In that capacity he provides transformative, strategic solutions to companies, organizations and individuals. He has more than 20 years experience in hospital management, with an acknowledged reputation for innovation and consumer-centered leadership.
Throughout his career, Mr. Jacobs has developed a reputation for innovative leadership that focuses on effective delivery of service that puts the patient’s needs and concerns first. He speaks extensively on this topic and has spoken for the American College of Healthcare Executives, American Hospital Association, and the World Health Organization numerous times.